Just Curious (Elliptical Question)

I posted this on a group I'm a part of, but it's been inactive so I haven't a received an answer. Here is the question:

This is probably a very stupid question but I noticed the elliptical has the regular moving handle bars and then in the middle two little non moving bars that you can just grab and mostly work your legs..now here's the question:

When you use the moving bars are you burning more calories? It would seem like you are since you have your arms moving, however I find it easier this way as well because your arms kind of help move the leg part down below. So in a sense I feel like I'm cheating. Heh. When I use the middle non moving ones I noticed I have to really use the strength of my legs.

Can anyone give me any insight on this? Sorry, like I said this is probably generally a really stupid question. :P

It's not a stupid question! If you just hold the moving handles, you won't burn significantly more calories.  Like you said, if you use a little push-pull on the handles, it only makes it easier for your legs, so it is basically a wash.

If you REALLY work on the push-pull (maybe increase the resistance, too), you will burn more calories and get a more full body workout.  I mix it up - warmup with just my legs, 5 minutes pushing on the handles at a higher resistance, rest for 5 no arms-lower resistance, 5 minutes pulling on the handles with the resistance up, etc....

Hope that helps!

It does! Thank you so much! :)

You can also ignore all the handles and let your arms swing naturally. I'd bet the extra calorie burn is pretty minimal, but that way at least you aren't using the machine to support any of your weight.

Yeah if you ingnore the handles all together you also get the benefit of engaging your core to keep your ballance.

If you are at the same resistance level, speed and HR, then the actual aerobic workload will be about the same, whether you are using arms and legs or legs only. Depending on relative muscle strength, familiarity w/the movement, etc, one might *feel* easier than the other, but intensity would be about the same.

There actually may be slightly less caloric burn when using arms and legs compared to legs only. That's because upper body exercise elicits a higher HR response relative to oxygen uptake than lower body exercise--i.e. at the same HR, you are burning fewer calories doing arm work than you are doing leg work. I think the overall effect is modest on a cross trainer because I don't know that the amount of arm work is that significant compared to the legs. Plus, for many people, using the arms helps them push a higher workload than they could with legs only, so even though arm/leg movement burns fewer Calories for a given workload level than does leg only, if arm/leg involvement allows one to work *harder* than they could with only legs, then that would wipe out any disadvantage.

Hope that makes sense.

i never know what to do when im on it, pick a program? which? it goes from level 1-20, what level i never know either? just in the middle?

what do most ppl do? w or without arms?

With arms until you get your balance at least.  I use level 8 or 9 in general. Up to 12.

I never bother with programs.

using the arms and legs is like doing compound excersizes like squat-curl-presses... you're burning more calories because you are doing more at once and using various parts of your body, but the effort is distributed so that it feels easier

it's like using the elliptical compared to using a stationary bike... the bike will tend to feel more difficult because all the stress is focused on the legs, while the arms don't really do much. You're not necessarily burning more calories, you're just stressing different muscles

the best way to tell how hard you're working and burning the most calories is to use a heart rate monitor, and rate your efforts... if it feels hard, it probably is! (don't cheat yourself)

up the resistance on the elliptical and give it your all... dont be one of those crazy ladies who flops around like a fish out of water on the elliptical with a low level resistance.

upping the resistance is like upping the incline on a treadmill, the higher it goes the harder it's going to be.

using the arms and legs is like doing compound excersizes like squat-curl-presses... you're burning more calories because you are doing more at once and using various parts of your body, but the effort is distributed so that it feels easier

it's like using the elliptical compared to using a stationary bike... the bike will tend to feel more difficult because all the stress is focused on the legs, while the arms don't really do much. You're not necessarily burning more calories, you're just stressing different muscles

the best way to tell how hard you're working and burning the most calories is to use a heart rate monitor, and rate your efforts... if it feels hard, it probably is! (don't cheat yourself)

up the resistance on the elliptical and give it your all... dont be one of those crazy ladies who flops around like a fish out of water on the elliptical with a low level resistance.

upping the resistance is like upping the incline on a treadmill, the higher it goes the harder it's going to be.

ive been doing level 12 w/the program set to "cross train" i think, 20 mins and im dying, and i use the arms bc i figure its a 2 in 1 WO, its really hard tho, not too crazy about it actually.

I just want to add that all elipticals are different as far as levels go, so unless you are on the same machine, you can't really compare.  My gym got new ones a few months ago, and the intesity of my workout changed drastically and I started burning a lot more calories.  I was using a HR monitor so I know that the calores burned didn't just change because the new machine calculated my burn differently.